This invention relates generally to the field of coolers or ice chests, i.e., generally rectangular containers with liquid-impermeable, insulated walls and having a hinged or removable top lid, typically portable, into which items to be cooled or chilled, such as cans or bottles, are deposited along with a large quantity of ice. More particularly, the invention relates to any such coolers having a controlled or ordered loading procedure.
Coolers used in chilling and maintaining at reduced temperature beverage containers such as bottles or cans are well known. Originally composed of insulated metal walls, most are now composed of plastic. Large stationary coolers may be found in retail establishments. Portable coolers are even more common for use in transporting bottles or cans of beverages to be consumed at chilled temperatures. In the most common scenario, a large number of cans or bottles are placed into the interior of the cooler and a large amount of relatively small ice cubes or crushed ice is then placed on top of the containers. As the heat is drawn from the cans or bottles by the ice, the ice melts to create a slurry of chilled water and ice surrounding the beverage containers. As the cooler is well insulated and provided with a lid, the melting process occurs slowly and little heat is drawn from outside the cooler, such that the beverage containers will remain chilled for long periods of time. Individual beverage containers are removed by simply reaching into the chilled water and ice mixture.
Because the quantity of beverage containers able to be chilled at any one time is limited by the size of the cooler, circumstances often arise, such as at a party, where it is desirable to restock or replenish the cooler with unchilled cans or bottles for cooling prior to all of the chilled containers having been removed, in order to insure that a continuous quantity of chilled containers will always be available for consumption. In usual practice, when most of the chilled beverage containers have been removed and there remains a large amount of cold water and ice, the unchilled containers are merely dumped or placed into the cooler when refilling. With this technique, the chilled containers may be forced to the bottom of the cooler by the addition of the unchilled containers, resulting in the need to reach deeply into the chilled water to obtain a chilled can or bottle. In addition, the unchilled containers and chilled containers will be randomly mixed after a few such removals from the bottom, such that it is difficult to distinguish a chilled container from an unchilled container and obtaining a chilled container becomes a matter of trial and error.
There are known apparatuses where beverage containers are loaded and dispensed in ordered fashion, such that chilled containers are dispensed prior to unchilled containers, the primary example of which are the well known soft drink vending machines. In these machines, vertical or serpentine gravity-fed chutes are provided to control the dispensing order of the chilled containers, with the cans or bottles being added to the top of the line of containers already in the chute and the bottom-most container being the container dispensed to the buyer. Examples of small, mechanically refrigerated apparatuses for chilling and dispensing beverage containers are illustrated in the 1987 patent to Morgan, Jr. et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,074) and the 1993 patent to Collard, Jr. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,798). In these devices, a top-loading chute is used to order the containers, with the chilled containers being individually dispensed from the lower end of the chute through a gating mechanism positioned in the wall of the cooler. In these apparatuses cooling is accomplished by chilled air. The structural design of these apparatuses is not applicable without modification to an apparatus utilizing melted ice to cool the containers, since dispensing the chilled container from the bottom of the stack or line must take into account the need to prevent melted water from flowing through the dispenser opening.
An early patent to Dickinson, U.S. Pat. No. 1,240,321 issued in 1917, shows an ice-cooled vending machine where the bottles are top-loaded into a chute that delivers the bottles in a line along the slanted bottom of the chest portion of the apparatus and through the chilled water that has melted from a large ice block suspended above the line of bottles. The chilled bottle at the end of the line abuts a wall, and an elevator mechanism is used to raise the bottle from the ice water and direct it into a dispensing chute for delivery to the buyer. Obviously such a complicated mechanical construction is not suitable for portable coolers for a number of reasons, the required elevator mechanism adding unnecessary expense and weight, reducing the volume available to receive the containers, and presenting maintenance issues.
For portable coolers utilizing melted ice as the cooling medium, attempts to solve the ordered dispensing problem focus on separating the ice from the chute retaining the beverage containers. One or more segregated ice compartments are provided and the chute is passed next to, above, below or between one or more walls defining the ice compartment or compartments. This construction does allow for a gravity-fed, top-loading chute with a lower dispensing gate, since the container chute is separated from the melted ice. Examples of such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,023,116 issued in 1912 to Bailey, U.S. Pat. No. 1,369,440 issued in 1921 to Jones, U.S. Pat. No. 1,689,054 issued in 1928 to Samuels, U.S. Pat. No. 4,510,770 issued in 1985 to Vella, U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,904 issued in 1990 to Dooley et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,582 issued in 2001 to Hixson. These constructions limit the amount of ice which can be used and lengthen the chilling time required to attain the desired temperature for the beverage containers because the efficiency of thermal transfer between the ice and the containers is reduced by the separating walls. These devices also reduce the overall capacity of the cooler to the number of beverage containers that can be retained within the chute. Placing a large quantity of ice and chilled water directly against and surrounding the containers to be cooled is a much more efficient method of bringing the unchilled containers to the desired temperature.
It is an object of this invention to provide a construction for a cooler or ice chest which addresses the restocking problem spoken to above, such that the cooler may be restocked in an ordered manner whereby the unchilled containers are directed to the bottom of the cooler beneath any chilled containers remaining in the cooler, such that the chilled containers remain disposed near the top of the cooler for easy access and ordered removal. It is a further object to provide such a cooler whose construction is not dramatically altered from the standard constructions of coolers as produced today, such that access to the interior of the cooler and to the beverage containers is still accomplished by simple movement or removal of a lid. It is a further object to provide such a cooler where the mechanism for accomplishing the ordered restocking of the cooler is relatively simple, and where powered or mechanical assemblies of moving parts are not required to accomplish ordered restocking. It is a further object to provide such a cooler where the ordering mechanism can be added to existing coolers. These and other objects will become apparent upon examination of the disclosure to follow.